Before I discuss the copyright wars generally, a difficult and multi-faceted topic, I want to vent about one aspect of it that is rather simple - website self-censorship on copyright issues by use of robots ('bots'). Most recently, as the below article from EFF points out, YouTube stopped access to its coverage of the Democratic National Convention, and Ustream stopped streaming the Hugo sci-fi award ceremonies, in each case because a bot they were using detected copyrighted material. True, but both cases involved clearly permitted uses under the copyright "fair use" doctrine. Had a human being been in any way involved in the decision that would have been clear - but the takedown was done by a bot. This is a classic illustration of what Lessig means when he says "code is law" - we have a bot doing what it is programmed to do before the legal system can get involved and assert its protections. Shoot first, ask questions later. But just as that method of action (if it can be called that) fails in the real world, so it should fail in cyberspace. Without the human element of "fuzzy logic" (ie, legal principles) being applied, the copyright infringement "fear" is so great that hosting sites will continue to resort to using bots to overbroadly censor what need not - and indeed should not - be censored. Bring back the humans please.
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/09/copyrights-robot-wars-heat-algorithms-block-live-streams-first-and-ask-questions
